Progress and Patience

The office of state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, has penned a press release that could seem, at first blush, to belie today’s column.

The release touts Senate Bill 237, which would prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.

My column unpacks a weird rift between Mayor Julian Castro and the local Stonewall Democrats, some of whom say city officials are not moving fast enough to protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents from discrimination in the workplace. This goal has been simmering since 2011, when activists formed the Community Alliance for a United San Antonio to win such protections for municipal employees.

According to Van de Putte’s press release, “Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. Several cities in Texas, including Austin, Dallas, El Paso, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio provide some protections to municipal employees.”

The local LGBT community, however, still has reason to fight for progress, even at the city level.

The local “protections” mentioned by Van de Putte were included in an administrative directive signed by City Manager Sheryl Sculley in 2008. This directive prohibits employment discrimination, defined as ” decisions based on stereotypes or assumptions about abilities, traits, or performance of individuals of a certain … sexual orientation.”

As an administrative directive, however, these protections theoretically could be rescinded by a future city manager. CAUSA initially sought to go further and outright amend city ordinances to prevent such discrimination not only in employment, but also in housing, public accommodations, city contracts and the appointment of city board and commission members.

Now CAUSA wants to prohibit such discrimination for all employers in San Antonio and establish a human rights commission to adjudicate any claims. City officials are in the midst of vetting these possibilities.

(If the reaction to Van de Putte’s bill is any indication, such local measures could face hostility from conservatives. Express-News Staff Writer Kolten Parker details the backlash at the Capitol.)

District 1 Councilman Diego Bernal, a civil rights attorney with the largest LGBT constituency in the city, understands the community’s sense of urgency to win these protections. But he, too, counsels patience.

“People who are being discriminated against, you never ask them to wait,” Bernal told me. “You never ask them to step aside. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t realities in your world that prolong making it actually happen.”